MA report shapes DCF grants

Issue 105/11, p5, November 2005

The bulk of the Designation Challenge Fund (DCF) will be allocated to projects that take forward ideas from the Museums Association's (MA) Collections for the Future report, according to the funding guidelines.

Alison Hems, the interim project director for Renaissance at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), which published the guidelines, described the MA's collections report as a 'milestone'. She said: 'The significance of the report lies in what's next, testing ideas and taking them forward.'

The fund, administered by the MLA, allows for grants of up to £100,000 from a total pot of £3.8m to go to museums with designated collections that meet the criteria.

Mary Kershaw, the director of collections at York Museums Trust, welcomed the guidelines and the way the MLA has taken on the MA's proposals. She said: 'We are really heartened that there seems to be a lot more joined up thinking from the bodies that are responsible for museums.'

The DCF is also offering grants of up to £15,000 to non-hub museums to enable them to collect and collate core audience and other data.

Ian Lawley, the head of museums at Stoke-on-Trent Museums Service, said he was pleased that data collection was being addressed as it was something museums in the West Midlands were currently working on.

'We collect a lot of data on our visitors anyway, but there is a discussion about whether, by getting together with other museums in the region, we can also do it for non-hub museums as a group.'